Lubbock council won't act on museum's euthanized mules plan

LUBBOCK — A San Antonio man’s threat to sue the city of Lubbock over two euthanized mules for a museum isn’t prompting the City Council to take action.

Patrick Greene said he plans to add Lubbock as a co- defendant to his pending lawsuit against American Museum of Agriculture board president Dan Taylor unless the city council votes to prohibit the museum from putting two euthanized mules on display in a historic reaping machine exhibit.

Lubbock Mayor Glen Robertson and other council members said they would not comment on the pending lawsuit, but confirmed the council had no plans to address Greene’s concern during Thursday’s meeting in City Hall.

“There’s nothing on the agenda addressing mules,” Robertson said.

City Councilman Victor Hernandez confirmed Greene sent council members an email warning he would add Lubbock to the lawsuit if the council did not take action by Friday.

Hernandez said he referred Greene to City Attorney Sam Medina.

Medina did not return Lubbock Avalanche-Journal requests for comment Wednesday.

Hernandez said the council had no plans to discuss the potential lawsuit during Friday’s council executive session — a closed-door session for the council to discuss lawsuits and personnel issues.

Greene said the museum’s decision to euthanize the two mules and its plans to stuff them for use in an exhibit violates a Lubbock ordinance concerning inhumane treatment of animals.

He cites Section 4.04.001 of the city’s code of ordinances stating: “Animals shall be cared for, treated, maintained and transported in a humane manner and not in violation of any provision of law, including federal, state and local laws; ordinances, and administrative rules.”

In an emailed statement, Greene said he first learned of the euthanized mules on his wife’s Facebook page.

“She told me about the story, and I got very angry that anyone would do that to a live animal,” he said in the statement.

“So, acting on my own moral principles as an atheist, I researched the federal and state laws about what Dan Taylor did, and finally filed the lawsuit in the Lubbock County District Court.

“I could not believe that anyone could be that immoral as to buy an animal and put it to death for something as trivial as a museum exhibit.”

Earlier this month, Greene sued Taylor, claiming Taylor failed to notify the people of Texas that he planned to have the mules euthanized for use in the exhibit, which he refers to in the suit as a “nefarious purpose.”

The suit, which has been assigned to 72nd District Judge Ruben Reyes, does not name the museum as a defendant.

Greene’s lawsuit does not seek monetary damages, but asks that the mules’ bodies be turned over to an animal sanctuary for cremation and disposal.

An announcement from the museum last month, when the controversy first arose, said the mules were old — one was 28 years old, the other 32 — and no longer strong enough or sturdy enough to work.

The museum intends to use the two stuffed animals in an exhibit with a restored McCormick reaper, a horse-drawn farm machine developed in the early 1830s that replaced hand reaping with scythes and sickles.

According to the announcement, the museum considered fiberglass replicas of mules, but opted to use stuffed animals to make the exhibit more realistic.

Greene is not represented by a lawyer. His lawsuit cites a state law declaring all wild animals property of the people of Texas, and notes other statutes including mules as livestock.

In addition, the lawsuit contends the mules were entitled to protection under the federal Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, a law passed to protect wild horses and burros from capture as long as they are on public lands.

To support his claim, Greene filed a copy of a news release from the Bureau of Land Management announcing “five mustangs, two burros and a mule” were being offered for adoption on a ranch near Redlands, Calif.

Genetically, however, the animals are different, according to several ranching websites. A mule is the product of a male donkey, called a jack, and a mare.

A burro is the Spanish word for a donkey, and refers to animals initially brought into North America in the 16th century when Spanish explorers began to colonize the continent.